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President of the Republic Responsible for Widespread Torture
The previous weeks have witnessed an escalation of police brutality and torture in a number of police stations, known for their long record of breaking the law, torture and violation of human rights of citizens. The situation this time was characterized by heavy presence of police sergeants who seem to be competing with their seniors in the infliction of torture, as if promotion within the Ministry of Interior has become dependent on the number of citizens they kill under torture.
A number of citizens have entered police station alive and let it in coffins to their graves, victims of the brutality and criminality of Egyptian police. Each time the Ministry of Interior issued a statement that twists the truths, reflects complicity with torturers and sometimes even rewards them. In all cases the death of the victim remains the same.
Some of those examples include Ahmed Badie Khafaga (May 2007, Damanhour police station), Saad Risk Allah Khalil (May 2007, Abou Hommos police station) and Tarek Foutouh El Imam (May 2005, Port Said police station) who the police claims have hanged themselves in their prison cells. It is noteworthy that Tarek had completed his prison sentence and had called his family, one day before his death, reminding them of his discharge from prison after 48 hours.
During this epidemic of death under torture, sergeants at Al Omraneyya police station psyched Nasser Sedik Gadallah from the third floor of his house. His wife and children watched as their father was thrown from the window, head down, which resulted in his immediate death. The same scenario happened before in March 2007 with Mohamed Nabawi Abdel Hafiz who was also thrown out of the window at Osim police station. The police claimed he had committed suicide. However Mohamed’s hands were handcuffed behind his back and the windowsill was 1.50 meters high. Before him the police threw Sherin Gharib from his apartment on the fourth floor and in July 2004 the police pushed Mohamed Shehata from the fourth floor of Qalubeya security directorate and again, claimed he had committed suicide. Other such crimes include Sabah Ahmed Badawi in Zawya El Hamra and Mohamed Mohamed Salem in Mashtoul who was beaten and pushed off the rood of his house. His fractured pelvis did not spare him further police torture, including the use of electricity, until he died at the police station.
Over a few days, torture stories doubled. A classic way of torture used by the men of Minister of Interior Habib El Adly is to burn the victims, among them the victims burned at Siwa police station and Khaled Abdel Nabi who was set on fire in Fanara police station and died as a result of the fire consuming 40% of his body. We shall not forget the story of Rabie Soliman who was soaked in Kerosene by the officer at Sanures police station, who gave the orders to burn him because he refused to confess to the theft of a cow. When the officer thought that Rabie had died he ordered his subordinates to throw him in the street in front of El Fayoum. He died a few days later.
The current situation in Egypt also witnesses several stories of hostage taking, where a family member is arrested and brutally tortured to confess regarding the whereabouts of the suspect or until the suspect gives himself up to spare his relative. This process has involved tens of victims, the last among which is the Telbana victim Nasr Ahmed Abdallah who was beaten in front of his house and whose torture continued in the hope that his brother would give himself up. The torture continued on the way to the police station and inside the police station, and a few hours alter he died of brain hemorrhage to join the martyrs of police torture in Montazah, El Raml, Moharam Bej, El Gomrok police stations in Alexandria, Imbaba, Madinet Nasr, Shobra El Kheima, Kasr El Nil,, El Warraq, El Omraneyya, Helwan, El Sayeda Zeinab, El Zaya El Hamra, 6th October, El Salam and El Marg in Cairo, Armant in Luxor, El Mahalla El Kobra, Damanhour and Fanara in Fayed.
Those crimes did not spare children, the last of whom was child Mohamed Mohamed Mamdouh, 12 years, who was killed in Mansoura police station (in the same week which witnessed the killing of Nasr Ahmed Abdallah in Telbana), preceded by other children who died in police custody such as Saddam Hussein, and Abdallah Risk Abdel Latif in 6th October police station.
This list would not be complete without making reference to the creativity in torture introduced by Egyptian police to the record of history of torture, when police officers hammered the head of one of their victims following that by the issuance of a detention order for that citizen to hide the evidence of their crime!!
Are those crimes the responsibility of the Minister of Interior alone? Doesn’t the president, who is the chair of the higher council of the police and the chair of the higher council of the judiciary etc. bear the prime responsibility of that moral and legal degradation of the police institution? Is it still possible for anybody to claim that this barbarity is merely the result of “individual” practices?
If this is about “individual” practices then it is time for this regime to leave since it has provided evidence for its failure to stand up to those “individual” crimes.. And if it is not about “individual” practices, which is our belief based on daily evidence, if torture has become the policy used by the state in dealing with its people, killed every day in sinking boats, burnt trains, cancerous maize, polluted blood and drinking water mixed with sewage.. the more so should this regime and it policy makers step down.
Tomorrow, the state will issue its releases claiming that human rights organizations are defaming the reputation of the country and that those “incidents” are but scattered incidents of misbehavior. However, all those corpses, all those limbs burnt with fire and electricity, all those widows whose husbands were alive when they entered police stations before they left them in coffins, all those children orphaned by the hands of an authority which implements policies of torture, oppression and breach of the law.. all those would testify that the reputation of the country is defamed by those who issue orders of torture, detention and killing in police stations, SSI headquarters and places of incarceration, both legal and illegal.
We the undersigned organizations
Hold the President of the Republic responsible for torture and killing in police stations and demand:
- That the president make a political statement and apology acknowledging the spread of torture and chaos.
- A comprehensive change in the legislations securing impunity for the perpetrators.
- Relevant bodies to begin independent investigations in torture allegations provided investigators would be appointed by the Egyptian Judges’ Club and be independent of the government, the presidency or the ruling party.
- Enactment of urgent measures to immediately stop torture, foremost the cancellation of the state security intelligence apparatus and bringing to justice all police personnel whose names were associated with torture.
- Enable civil society organizations to have access to prisons, police stations and all places of incarceration.
We also call upon all human rights organizations, national, Arab and international to organize a campaign to expel Egypt from the international human rights council. We cannot overlook the face that torture has reached unprecedented scales after Egypt’s access to the council, as if the Egyptian government believes that its membership provides it with impunity on the regional and international levels.
Until then, we the undersigned will begin an ongoing campaign highlight the crimes of torture committed in Egypt, its perpetrators, those who order it and those who are complicit with it. We shall have our files ready for when the time comes for accountability and justice.
Cairo 15th August 2007
Undersigned organizations:
Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Hisham Mubarak Law Center
El Fagr Center for Human Rights
Center for Human Rights Studies and Legal Information
Egyptian Association against Torture
Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
Arab Network for Human Rights Information
Association for Human Rights Legal Aid
Land Center for Human Rights
Sons of the Land Center for Human Rights
Bariq Association against Violence against Women
El Awn Egyptian Association for Human Rights
Center for the Rights of the Egyptian Child
Center for Socialist Studies
El Horeyya Center for Political Rights and Support of Democracy
Shumu’u Center for the Rights of the Disabled
Mosawat Association – Port Said
Committee of Liberties at the Press
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